


Lost and found

by BlueMoonHound



Series: Lucretia [8]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Unplanned Pregnancy, implied cultural polyamory, taakretia baby angus, tfw ur found family is your bio family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-02 22:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13328151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMoonHound/pseuds/BlueMoonHound
Summary: There were a few things Taako didn't want to talk about in the room with Angus and the crew, a few reasons he pointed his staff right into Lucretia's face that he wouldn't admit to anyone but her-- and he knew in that moment that no matter how rash he was going to be, he couldn't kill her. He couldn't. He wouldn't orphan Angus again. Taako knows he can be cruel, but he's no villain.In fact, Taako regrets in that moment. He regrets so many choices he made while lacking his memory, especially involving Angus. He loves Angus – his son, Angus – so much, and his love spills down his cheeks mixed with fear and anger and worry before he can stop it.





	Lost and found

**Author's Note:**

> this is my contribution to the Ipre-child!angus trend. Enjoi :B  
> also i am apparently the christener of the taakretia ship tag. I'm not sure whether to be proud.

 

“Taako?”

It's good old Lucy, standing in the doorway, holding herself the way she does when she's scared. There's something ineffable about Lucretia that draws Taako to her the way moths dance around a fire before they die.

They had a _thing_ \-- well, everyone on the crew has some level of a thing, whether it's just familial or just sexual or romantic or something in between the three. For the two of them, it was something slow and soft and sweet and occasionally raunchy, flipping from platonic to sexual. Warm baths and self-care and hot chocolate and that one time Lucretia dared him to cook while she sucked his dick. 

She takes a tentative step further into the kitchen and her arms curl farther around her chest.

“Yea, babe?”

“I have, something to tell you.” She takes a deep breath and holds it, looking at the wall, the floor, not Taako. He's starting to get a bad feeling.

“Ya doin okay, Lucy?” Taako walks over to her, puts his hands on her upper arms. “Are you sick?”

“No, well,” She laughs in a very not-Lucretia way and Taako's ears flick back, startled. “Well. You should probably sit down.”

The anxiety in the pit of Taako's stomach sinks even further. “Okay, okay, let's sit down, and uh, I was just restocking the cupboards, so, this is fine,” he leads her into the living area and sits down on the couch, cross legged across from her. “Lucy, you're scaring me. What's going on?”

“I'm, well, ah. Taako, I'm pregnant.”

It's Taako's turn to laugh, a little hysterically. “Why are ya tellin _me_?”

“Well, Taako-- I haven't-- it's yours. There's no way it's not _yours_.”

“Oh, hum,” he stops. His mind's spinning just a little. This is a conversation he had never expected to have. Then again, after losing Lup, he'd been visiting Lucretia a lot more often, because who else knows him well enough to hold him and tell him what he needs to hear? “You gonna keep it?”

“Taako, I don't know what abortion medicine is like on this plane, I don't – I think keeping it is the safest option, but – Taako, I'm scared--” She's crying, oh shit she's crying. Taako leans forward and grabs Lucretia and wraps his arms around her. He holds her against his chest and lets her soak his perfectly good shirt with her tears.

“Do ya want me to make hot cocoa and grilled cheese?” He runs his fingers through her hair. “We don't have tons a cheese left, and it hasn't been invented here, but I think this warrants a good grilled cheese. Yeah?”

Lucretia laughs. “Yeah,” she says.

It ends up being a nice afternoon. They'll work it out, Taako tells himself. He tells himself it'll be fine, right up to the day when he forgets. And when he forgets, well, nothing's fine anymore.

 

Lucretia knows who Angus Mcdonald is. She met him when he was very small, and passed him on to family that could care for him. For all he knows, his parents left him on the street. It frightens her, honestly.

She wants him to just vanish again, because it's too much to deal with him and Taako there, Taako pulling jokes on a ten year old half-elf child, his own son. She knows he's just being – whatever shell of the man she knew that the voidfish-- that _she_ left behind when she erased his memory. She wants him to disappear, to be safe and happy somewhere else, somewhere far away from his mother and father and their ridiculous, terrible history. It would be better that way.

But, as he pokes closer and closer to the wall the Voidfish has created in fact and reality, she realizes that's not an option. He's too much like her for his own good, and just as quick witted and sneaky as his father once was. He's on the trail of some truth, and he won't stop till he catches it and pulls it out of the hole from which it's hiding.

So she tracks him down.

She finds Angus on the trail of one of her seekers, at a bar in Neverwinter, poking around. She slides towards the bar, orders herself a wine, and watches him work for a little bit. It reminds her of Taako again, though this one isn't conning anyone out of their shoes. He just wants information, and the painful intersection of herself and her – _friend? Her lover? Her acquaintance? No, she's thinking of him, pre-voidfish in these comparisons, but it's too close, too wrong to describe him anyway_ – in this boy makes itself even more noticeable in that moment.

She swallows a large mouthful of wine and makes sure her bracer is visible while she's at it. Angus, of course, notices.

“Hello, Ma'am! Could I talk to you?” He slides onto the bar stool next to Lucretia. She drinks more wine and slips the bulwark staff onto her other side, wrapping her arm around it.

“Hello,” she says. “What would you like to talk about?” _Wine on the table, Lucretia. Don't spill on this robe, it's a nice robe and your hands are shaking_.

“Well, I'm looking for something--” His voice lowers. “Do you know anything about--” he pauses, flipping through his pages. “Uh, what's your bracer for? I'm afraid I'm not sure how to pronounce this in the static language.”

Static language? “Do you mean the bureau of balance?”

“Yes! I think there's a secret society trying to protect the world from – well, something – I'm trying to catch them but it's hard! Because they speak a strange static language.”

“It's not a language,” Lucretia says. She lowers her own voice. “I'm the leader of said organization. Magnus, Merle and Taako, the members you met on the train, they work for me." She takes a probably unnecessary breath. "Would you like a job?”

“What – Ma'am! Are you--” He takes a deep breath and quiets even further. “Are you offering me a position in your secret society?”

“Yes, and we can leave now,” Lucretia says. “If you wish.”

“Yes! Please, I--”

“Do you have family you need to inform of your departure?” she asks. It feels like a stupid question. She is his family. She's the one who left him with Mr. Mcdonald, ten years ago. “I would assume they're okay with you working, but this is, well, this qualifies as the last job you can ever take. Unfortunately, terms and conditions apply.” Lucretia climbs down away from the bar, drops a handful of gold pieces next to her half-finished wine, and heads towards the door, Angus totting along behind her.

“It's fine, I don't have any family,” Angus says. “My grandpa died recently.”

“Me neither, kid,” Lucretia allows.

“We could be each other's family?” he says.

Pain and sadness well up in Lucretia so fast that she can't stop a little of it from leaking onto her face. “Alright.”

They reach a field outside of town, and Lucretia hits her bracer. It glows for a moment.

“What does that do?”

“Summons transport.”

“Is that all?” His hands hover around her right wrist, and Lucretia holds it out to him. He messes with the edges of her bracer, looks for a seam, runs his fingers along the design.

“Well it also signifies membership in my organization, but in terms of actual actions it performs? It summons transport.”

Angus hums, letting her arm drop. His eyes rake over her form, his half-elven ears twitching (like Taako's do), his eyes a soft brown amber, the perfect blend of her and Taako. It's too much. She runs her hand down her staff and sits on the ground, waiting for the pod to arrive in silence and struggling internally to get her emotions under control.

“Are you okay, Ma'am?”

“It's Lucretia,” she says before she can stop herself.

“Yes Ma'am. Sorry. Lucretia.”

She sighs and puts her face in her hands. “You don't have to call me Lucretia.”

“I'm very confused.”

“I apologize. And to answer your question, I'm fine.”

“You don't seem fine. I think you're lying.”

“You're too intuitive for your own good, Angus Mcdonald.” A pod lands in front of them, and she stands up. “Ready to go?”

“Yes, Ma'am!” Angus says. She realizes another familiar aspect to Angus-- he sounds like her little brother. Her little brother died when she was fourteen.

She has to take a very deep breath to avoid breaking down when this occurs to her. Fuck almighty. She climbs into the pod and offers Angus a hand.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Angus asks. “you're crying.”

Lucretia wipes away her tears. “No, no, it's alright, you just remind me of, well, some people who aren't in my life anymore. That's not your fault.” A lot of things aren't Angus's fault.

“Oh, I'm sorry, for your, loss. My grandpa died recently. It's probably not the same but maybe I understand.”

“Buckle up,” Lucretia says, reaching for the liftoff lever. “You're too considerate for your own good.”

“I don't have any parents either,” he continues. “I don't know where they went. Grandpa says mom dropped me off when I was a little kid.”

Lucretia grips her staff tight. “I hope you can make good friends at the Bureau,” she says. It's all she can think to say. She feels like she's filling up with static. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe this was the wrong course of action.

It's fine, it's fine. She's too old to be his mother, technically speaking. He won't suspect that. Not until he learns about Wonderland, anyway.

Angus goes quiet for the rest of the ride, giving Lucretia time to collect herself. He stares out the window, awestruck and a little afraid as the world he knows shrinks below him. She can tell he has questions, but he's holding his tongue.

Avi looks a little astonished when Angus steps out of the pod, back on base. Lucretia raises a hand, and he doesn't say anything. “New initiate.”

“But-- Madam director-- that's– a child??”

“I'll take care of him,” she says. “It's going to be fine.”

“Who are you convincing?”

She raises an eyebrow and Avi shuts up again. Avi, luckily, wasn't around for Angus's birth. She hired him later. (Cam and Maureen, they were there.)

Lucretia leads Angus through the base, to the elevator, and waits for it to arrive.

“My head hurts, Ma'am,” he says.

“I can carry you if you need,” she says. “It's not far now. Normally we offer people alcohol to help with this, but, you're rather young for that.”

“O-oh, I'll, I'm fine.” Angus leans against her anyway. He's rather tall for his age. She ruffles his hair, following an impulse. (It's soft like Taako's hair.)

Angus's hand does make its way into hers when the elevator arrives. She gives it a squeeze as he leans against the wall. It stays there for the whole elevator ride, stays there when they walk out of the elevator. It's painfully familial, but at the same time it makes her heart swell. She lets the ants under her skin chew away and doesn't move to take her hand out of Angus's. _He's your son, you should be allowed to hold his hand. You should be able to hug him when he comes home. To sing him to sleep at night. He's your son_.

Johann is playing music when they enter the room. She can tell it's an old composition by the way Angus lets go of her hand and claps his hands over his ears.

“Johann.”

The music halts. “Madam director-- oh, who--”

“This is Angus. He's a new initiate. Give us a moment.”

Lucretia pours Angus a flask of ichor and watches his ears flick up as he remembers some things-- mostly names, probably. “The bureau of balance?”

“That is the name of this organization.”

“So wait-- the- the boys were looking for grand relics? What are the grand relics?”

Lucretia sits down on the edge of the step leading to fisher's tank. “There was a war, before you were born,” Lucretia says. “A war over these grand relics, the most powerful magical artifacts in the world...”

 

(It hurts.)

Watching Taako and Angus putter around – it hurts. Watching Taako insult the kid – hurts. Watching Angus clearly take to Taako, treat him like a father-- that hurts the most, and Lucretia cries in her room for a whole day, only climbing out of her shell when Davenport brings her a tea and wraps his arms around her and waits till she can respond.

(And it's never going to stop hurting.)

 

There were a few things Taako didn't want to talk about in the room with Angus and the crew, a few reasons he pointed his staff right into Lucretia's face that he wouldn't admit to anyone but her-- and he knew in that moment that no matter how rash he was going to be, he couldn't kill her. He couldn't. He wouldn't orphan Angus again. Taako knows he can be cruel, but he's no villain.

In fact, Taako regrets in that moment. He regrets so many choices he made while lacking his memory, especially involving Angus. He loves Angus – his _son_ , Angus – so much, and his love spills down his cheeks mixed with fear and anger and worry before he can stop it.

The fight is over, the smoke still rising from the battlefields, and Lucretia is nowhere to be seen, of course. Of course she just vanishes when things get bad. He doesn't blame her, but it doesn't delight him either. Taako sits in the mostly whole remains of his room in the suite on the moonbase, leaning against the wall behind his bed, thinking about the memories he's regained.

It's not so much that he and Lucretia had been a fling. The two of them were close, intertwined like fingers, before she'd ripped the crew apart. They had been, well, almost a couple, much more comforting than friends usually are but not really looking at each other like a relationship. And children and the end of the universe didn't exactly go hand in hand, so of course they'd never expected – _that_.

Taako fumbles for his stone of farspeech. 

“Kravitz?”

He just needs to hear his boyfriend's voice, to know that things are okay – things are distinctly not okay for Taako right now, but maybe things are okay for Kravitz, and maybe that would help.

“Taako-- dear, I'm awfully busy, what is it?”

“Hey Krav,” he says, then stops, because what's he supposed to say? 'I have a son with the lady who was my boss, sorry'?? emotions conflict in Taako's chest, tugging at his existence like tangled bits of string.

“Do you need me?”

Thank gods for empathy. “Yeah,” Taako says.

A rift opens almost immediately, and Kravitz hurries into the room. “Shit,” he says, seeing Taako sitting against the bed. He must look worse than he feels, but then again, he's not sure if it's possible to look as numb as he feels.

The bed dips as Kravitz sits down. “Can I touch you?”

“Yeah,” Taako says, and then he's in Kravitz's lap, his cool, soft shirt against his face. “Hey.”

“Hello,” Kravitz says.

“Uh, Krav?”

“Yes?”

“You ever had a kid before?”

“No, I, took care of my younger brother for a while when I was alive, but I never had a child.”

Taako laughs against his chest. “I had a kid, and I forgot he existed, and met him anyway, Krav, it's so-- I don't, I'm sorry?”

“What? Taako-- you have a child? You didn't tell me about this.”

“I'm telling you now,” he rasps. “I remember now.”

“Angus?”

“Yeah.”

“Does that make him my stepson?”

Taako giggles. “Yeah.” He kisses Kravitz's jawline.

There's a pregnant pause. Taako wraps his arms tighter around Kravitz.

“Taako, relax, it's fine. I was raised by an elf. I know how you handle relationships. I don't blame you for having a relationship before you met me, and I wouldn't blame you if you decided to continue it now.”

“No,” Taako says. His voice rattles. “I hate her.”

“You're allowed to be angry,” Kravitz says.

“I hate her so much. I missed her,” He takes a deep breath. “I love you.”

It's the first time he's said it. Kravitz is a little astonished, because the timing is so wild, it feels off like his state of being felt when he first became undead. “I love you too,” he manages, through the swirling emotions in his mind.

“I should talk to Angus, shouldn't I?”

“You should.”

The previous tension in Taako's form leaves him, and he sags against his boyfriend. Kravitz runs his fingers though his hair.

“Hey krav?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

To kravitz's chagrin (he really is quite busy at work) Taako falls asleep. Can't get up-- that would be like moving a sleeping cat. Crimes against sapient nature and existence. Terrible.

He keeps running his fingers through Taako's hair.

 

Angus has his suspicions. After story and song, Taako and Lucretia had been treading more carefully around him – not that Lucretia was ever unreserved around him, but he notices it now. He thinks he knows why. He's noticed some clues-- the way she acted when she hired him, how she treated him almost like a son, his own appearance.

He stands in front of a mirror now, comparing himself to the Taaco twins, to Lucretia. It's occurred to him that maybe he's Lup's child, but he doubts that's the answer, just because of how they talk about her like she's been gone for longer than he's been alive.

He'd always known he was half-elven – half sun elf, or maybe wood elf but probably sun elf, because his eyes are fairly orange and his hair is pale, contrasting his brown skin, the same way Taako's does. His hair is much curlier than Taako's, though, and dark skin can be a human trait. Most elf traits can be human traits.

Angus turns away from the mirror and takes off his glasses. Which one of them had needed glasses when they were a kid? Maybe he's wrong. Maybe he's completely unrelated from both of them. His ears sink. He'd just love to have a family.

There's a knock at the door. “Come in,” Angus says, distracted. He's not wearing his suitcoat, but oh well, he doubts it matters. Nobody but Lucretia and Davenport ever dress as fancy as him.

Taako enters the room, looking more nervous than Angus has ever seen him. “Sir?”

“Hey Agnes, how ya doin?”

“Fine, sir.” Angus sits down on the chest at the foot of his bed. “How are you?”

“Oh, yanno. I'm Taako. I'm good.”

“If you say so, sir. Why are you here?”

Angus does not expect the nervous giggle that comes out of Taako's mouth.

“Sir?” He sits up a little straighter. “Sir, you can sit down if you want.”

Taako takes that invitation. Angus starts to worry in earnest. He hasn't teased him once since he entered the room.

“What have you figured out?” Taako says. He's not looking at Angus's face.

“About what, sir?”

“About your folks,” Taako says.

“Well I'm half elf, I think my elf parent was a sun elf, and I look a lot like you and Lucretia, or Lucretia and Lup, but Lup was gone before I could have been conceived. There's a lot of humans and sun elves in the world, though, so maybe I'm just not related to you at all. Mostly I don't know. I'm missing key pieces.”

“Well, you're right,” Taako says.

“About which part, sir?”

Taako has a habit of being the least straightforward he possibly can be. “Guess that all makes Krav your stepdad, yeah? But uh. If you wanna keep living with Lucy I wouldn't be upset. I mean. This is where you _have_ been.”

“Sir.”

Taako looks at the ceiling. “And I'm super sorry I haven't been around for you all these years. I don't wanna be a deadbeat dad. That's sucky as fuck, lil dude.”

“Sir, you didn't know you had a kid. I forgive you for that.”

“I mean, I, Well I did, and then Lucy took--” Taako shudders and puts his head in his hands. “I'm so sorry, Agnes.” His voice sounds clogged up and teary.

“It's okay, Sir,” Angus whispers. “I'm used to not having parents now.”

“Ango, the moment you were conceived you were destined to have at least five whole dads.” Taako laughs, a little hysterical. “Guess ya got six. S'chill, right? But, uh. This is bullshit, mdude.”

Angus takes a few deep breaths. Six whole dads. The silence is nerve wracking. “Sir?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“Oh man, Ango, Taako's all outta emotional energy for the day. Please leave a message.”

“Oh, that's okay sir. Do you wanna get lunch?”

“Sure,” Taako sighs.

That's fine. Angus has been watching for a long time. Family is about a lot of things, but it's also about understanding.


End file.
